Friday, December 4, 2009

Housing Commission - needed?

Here we go again. Something's broken, so the County Board is going to create a commission to fix it.

This morning's headline in the Northwest Herald: "County eyes housing costs", with the sub-headline, "Foreclosures, pricey rents prompt proposal for commission."

282 foreclosure filings in September 2009.
228 foreclosure filings in September 2008.

Why September? Why not October? November? And what's the year-to-date total? Certainly, the courthouse should be able to provide more current numbers.

"Affordable housing" in McHenry County? What a joke!

If the County Board wants to do something to make rents and housing more affordable, how about a commission to lower property taxes?

Supply and demand ought to control the marketplace, but the extremely high property taxes in McHenry County will keep rents and mortgage payments high. Maybe a County Commission could have some influence on municipalities to lower their property tax bite out of the apple or some influence on school districts? Not likely!

Woodstock granted dispensation to some Cunat apartments that were carved out of storage rooms before Cunat bought the rental property. Instead of telling Cunat, "Tough luck; should have done your due diligence more carefully", the City Council blessed the previously-unapproved changes. And how much are the rents for a storage room-now-efficiency apartment? What were they - 380 sq. feet? $600/month??? Now that's pricey!

Affordable housing for someone (that's some"one") who wanted an efficiency (or studio) apartment would probably mean a monthly rent of $300, not $600.

7 comments:

yagottabekidding said...

I hate to admit it, really really hate to admit it, but I agree with you on this one. The County Board would f--- up a one car funeral! Of course so would the State and Federal Governments.

Unknown said...

The McHenry County Housing Authority has a contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development which enables 947 elderly and limited income families and individuals to receive rental assistance.

From the McHenry County Housing Autority website. http://www.mchenrycountyhousing.org/WebPages/Section%208%20Rental%20Assistance.aspx

According to the Illinois Housing Development Authority there are 1096 apartments that are Financed by IHDA (Section 8 perhaps?). These are Family, Senior, and Special Needs developments...or some combinations of those. Let’s negate the purely Senior and Special Needs developments for a second. I suspect most folks would like to see Gramps and Grandma have someplace to stay and helping individuals who are special needs is simply the right thing to do. So of those 1096 apartments, 641 are Family developments that may also include senior or special needs units. Regardless of this fact, 393 of these apartments are in Woodstock; 132 are in McHenry, and 116 are in Crystal Lake. Certainly there are more towns in McHenry County that can share the burden of supporting these types of developments. And yes I will call it a burden, because it is...both financially and culturally. Why does Woodstock have the most of these units…is it because the McHenry County Housing Authority is located in Woodstock IL, and it’s simply easier for the board members to locate properties in this town to use as publically subsidized housing? Where is the subsidized housing in Harvard, Marengo, Hebron, Lake in the Hills, Algonquin, Cary, Richmond, Spring Grove, Island Lake, Bull Valley, Prairie Grove, Wonder Lake, Johnsburg, Huntley, and Lakemoor, etc. To be fair, Hebron and Harvard do have Special Needs and Senior developments respectively. Still all told including all types of apartment housing Family, Senior or Special Needs, Woodstock has a total of 651 of those 1096. This does not include those “single family home” properties that may be rented out as section 8 housing.

So does McHenry County really have an affordable housing issue or does Woodstock carry the largest burden of it…I think that is a better question.

yagottabekidding said...

There were residents of said Cunat apartments that were prepared to testify under oath that Cunat was lying about the timeing of the storage area 'apartments' construction.Evidently the City didn't want to hear it.

Gus said...

I remember thinking at the time that it didn't make sense to me that Cunat had not done a careful audit and inventory of apartments at that complex. It seems to me that they should have discovered any illegal conversion of storage rooms at that time.

Are you saying that the storage rooms were converted AFTER Cunat acquired the property?

yagottabekidding said...

I'm not saying it. The residents who were going to testify are saying it.

Gus said...

If you know any of them, will you please ask them to contact me? Thanks.

yagottabekidding said...

I had heard that as well but I think they moved out of town.